A few years back, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, along with Boeing, beat out Nevada-based Sierra Nevada Corp. for a multi-billion-dollar contract to develop spacecraft to transport crews to and from the International Space Station.

That loss, however, did not dampen Sierra Nevada’s outer-space aspirations.

This past weekend, Sierra Nevada said its Dream Chaser spacecraft, designed to carry cargo but not humans to the station, had a successful free-flight drop test in the Mojave Desert. The company tweeted photos of the craft gliding to a landing at Edwards Air Force Base on Saturday, and promised to release more details later.

In previous tests this year a helicopter carried the Dream Chaser aloft but did not release it. The aircraft, which is 30 feet long or about one quarter the length of the space shuttle, has been in the works for more than a decade. And this weekend’s test was critical if Sierra Nevada hopes to keep up in the highly competitive race to build a fleet of space planes.

Sierra Nevada is a privately held electronic-systems company that was purchased in 1994 by Turkish-born Eren Ozmen and her husband Fatih. Under the couple’s ownership, the company has seen gravity-defying growth, expanding from a staff of 20 employees to a global team today of nearly 3,000 people in 34 locations in the United States, England, Germany and Turkey.

As one of the top woman-owned federal contractors in the nation, Sierra Nevada and its ”Dream Team” of engineers in 2014 unveiled details of of the Dream Chaser and early last year the company was awarded a NASA contract to resupply the International Space Station between 2019 and 2024, guaranteeing a minimum of six launches. So far the company has received more than $300 million from NASA.

Here’s a visual simulation of the Dream Chaser in flight, showing how the aircraft would connect to one end of the space station like some sci-fi plug-in vehicle:

One pilot program for autonomous vehicle proposed by the state PUC would allow authorized transportation carriers to provide passenger service using autonomous vehicles with a driver in the vehicle, while the second pilot program enables authorized carriers to provide driver-less passenger service.